13 Goodgymers, Dropped 200 leaflets for 2 worthy causes on a wintery but wonderful Monday night in Brent.

Greeted by the awesome sight of not one, not two, but three new faces and a whole bunch of awesome oldies too, I was over the moon to be back from hols and straight back into the warm embrace of the one and only GoodGym Brent.

With welcomes and housekeeping underway, the team were introduced to the task for the night - The Bi-Monthly track session and leaflet drop. This week I was delighted to welcome Tania's contribution for the Brent Social counselling services, an opportunity for low income and out of work local people to be supported in achieving positive mental health, through talk therapy in the borough of Brent.

With no time to waste the team were off, speeding down the road and engaging with all the community along the way. Newbie Rebekah was the woman with the effective 'wink' and used these Eye-rresistible (sorry) charms to drop the most out of the whole team.

After the one mile dash to Willesden Track the team didn't rest on their laurels and got stuck straight into the the most Hard-Core strength and abs session known to mankind. Strength work started with: *Walking lunges *Piggy back runs *Squat sequence Quickly followed by walking held planks and scissor kicks for..... well as long as I could do it so that was a looonnnnggggggg time!!! HA HA

Mixing in with the strength work the team bashed out a series of speedy 100m sprints followed by 200's and recovery runs. It's safe to say they gave it a Good-Gym run for their money (again sorry, it seems my holiday away has been plenty of time to come up with the cheesiest of all cheer puns)

After sweat there was the stretch and one last dash home to freedom. Despite the cold and teasing drops of wintery rain, there was only good vibes and good times had by all, what a way to get back in the game!!

Another successful dose of community goodness and athletic throw down to boot. There's only one place to fuel body and soul and that's ramping it up with West London's finest - GG Brent.

Until next time.....

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

On a wet Monday night, seven GoodGym Redbridge runners took on the challenge of delivering flyers for an ‘Active Together’ initiative and ran more than 8km in the process.

Spurred on by the knowledge that “skin is waterproof”, the magnificent seven met at our usual home – Wanstead House Community Association – for the usual briefing and catch up. Excitingly the group was joined by three Redbridge first timers – Alice, Caitriona and Tim.

With the usual GG news dealt with it was time for Sam from Vision Redbridge Culture and Leisure to talk us through the nights task. She explained that we were flyering for an initiative called “Active Together” which aimed to engage with the residents of local housing estates and find out what would make them get out and be more active. A brilliant task and one well aligned with what we do at GoodGym.

Without further delay, the group headed off up Wanstead High St in the direction of the Hermitage Estate. Armed with bags of flyers and one fire key for accessing the buildings the team set to work distributing the goods. Each building was three of four stories high, which meant the added bonus of a stair workout in each building. With Vision’s Sam and Trainer James, doing relay to open the doors, the group soon made quick work on posting the flyers and within 30 minutes the task was complete.

With 30 minutes left on the clock there was still time for a short 4km run around Snaresbrook before heading back to base for a cool down stretch.

All in all a brilliant task which saw GG Redbridge help make a real difference in the local area, get a little bit sweaty and a lot fitter. And the rain even held off.

Great work everyone. Same time next week?

P.S. Big shout out to Peter for the photo taking!

A whopping 45 Goodgymers gathered in Islington this Monday

A mass of goodgymers flocked to Highbury Pool this Monday, ready to get involved. We welcomed several first timers to GoodGym, why not go and give them a cheer and say welcome to Imogen, Caroline, Sarah, Laura, Susann, Wendy, Claire, another Imogen, Alice, Victoria and Emma.

Congratulations were in order for Patrick on his Berlin Marathon time as well as everyone who went to Cardiff Half Marathon on Sunday. Well done to everyone!

Farming fun at Freightliners

This week's task was with the wonderful people at Freightliners Farm. No one loves a visit to the farm more than GoodGym, even if it does mean shovelling some manure. As it is a short run plenty of people took on the challenge of a longer run with Graham leading the way with some laps of Highbury Fields. The rest of us were too eager to see the animals and headed straight for the farm.

Graham describes the longer run:

A group of hardy GoodGymers set off to up the pace and distance with a few extra laps of Highbury Fields before starting.

Following a few warm up drills (featuring high knees, tail flicks, walking lunges, and sprints, and my best attempt at something resembling an army drill), we headed off to get the extra distance in.

Brilliantly, everyone did at least an extra two laps and upped their workout with an extra 2k - nice! Given the number of people who did extra laps in total, I reckon we did at least 50 laps of Highbury Fields collectively. That's about 10 parkruns, and longer than marathon distance - excellent job team!

With the extra laps under our belts, we ran over to the farm where remarkably we didn't get lost. Well except for that one-bit-where-we-ran-5m-past-a-turn-but-that-totally-doesn't-count. Which as any Islington regulars will tell you - a pretty big success given my navigation skills! A pre-task running session success.

We may have had a big group, but there was no shortage of work to be done and by golly did we tackle it. With wellies and gloves at the ready the first group got stuck in shovelling a mountain of manure into sacks. Working in pairs they tackled the task with gusto. Great job! By the time everyone from the longer run joined there was plenty more work to be done. There were groups:

• Shovelling manure

• Shovelling compost

• Transporting 60 bags of manure (and then taking another 20 bags)

• Sanding a table

• Sweeping the courtyard

• Cleaning the paths

• Weeding the paths

• breathe

Phew, amazing work! And of course a special shout out to the Torchbearers, which has become a bit of a regular task now that Winter is coming, without them we can't see a thing!

It wouldn't be a trip to the farm without meeting the animals so before leaving there was plenty of time to say hello. Once we were all cleaned up we set off back in three groups for a quick run back.

Only in Islington...

Going with the farm theme, the debate this week was "What is the best farm animal?" Going for a very democratic voting system of shouting your answer goat was definitely heard the loudest.

Keeping the farm theme alive, biscuits of the week were a childhood favourite Animals and a random find of Zoo biscuits. Both going down very well post run.

What next?

• This month's drinks are on Thursday 6th at the Islington Townhouse in Angel. Local to us so come along! More info here.

• If you're too committed to the running to be drinking then why not try a Fitness 4 All training session in Camden, also on Thursday. More info here.

• If I haven't tempted you by either of these then we will see you next week!

Awesome effort everyone!

Aidan